


Inner Strength

by ingenious_spark



Series: Saint Seiya Ladies Fest 2017/2018 [5]
Category: Saint Seiya
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Saint Seiya Ladies Fest 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15200675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingenious_spark/pseuds/ingenious_spark
Summary: Pandora finds within herself the last dregs of inner strength, when she rebels against the Twin Gods, and gives Ikki her necklace.(For the Saint Seiya Ladies Fest (@cdzladiesfest) on Tumblr)





	Inner Strength

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 of the Saint Seiya Ladies Fest (@cdzladiesfest) on Tumblr. Prompt was, obviously, Inner Strength. :)

Pandora is weak, and it burns like acid in her veins. Ever since she had released the Twin Gods from their confinement as a curious, innocent child, she has been under their thumb, firmly in their control. They have made her who she is.

She barely even remembers her family anymore, except to know that she is to blame for their deaths. She brought hell down upon Heinstein Manor, and it was right of Hypnos and Thanatos to christen her Pandora.

Pandora doesn’t remember what name her parents gave her.

All she remembers is the smell of death and decay. That smell is sometimes the only thing she can smell, on bad days. Does Pandora look like her mother? Or does she take after her father? Unless she finds pictures at Heinstein Manor, she doubts she’ll ever know.

…She really doesn’t want to go back to the manor. She doesn’t even know if the bodies were ever cleared away.

It surprises her, given how weak she is, how prone to being manipulated, when she finally rebels. It surprises her that she even does it in the first place, much less for that stubborn brat of a boy who had nearly prevented her from marking Hades’s new vessel.

If she hadn’t managed to mark his vessel, Hypnos and Thanatos would have punished her severely. Since she had been supposed to bring his vessel to them, she had still been punished, but a short period of starvation is better and easier to overcome than some of their more creative punishments.

_(Pandora vaguely recalls that she was supposed to have been tall, a vague mental image of a doctor teasing her about perhaps getting all the way to a hundred and eighty centimeters one day.)_

The way his Cosmo burns awakens a tiny flame in her own chest. Rebellion, or maybe the strength that she has always had beaten out of her by the controlling and manipulative gods. She finds in herself a surge of inner strength as she takes the necklace from her throat, aware she is sacrificing her life. But for the first time since she was a child, the veil of apathetic, fearful greyness has lifted. Pandora feels hope, she feels spite. She wraps the necklace around Phoenix’s wrist, and gives him an ultimatum.

Vengeance, not only for his brother, Andromeda, but for Pandora, too. Pandora, and her family, victims of the capricious, callous will of the gods of sleep and death.

Pandora gives to Phoenix her will, her spite, the last dregs of strength she hadn’t even known she had.

And then, Pandora rests.

**Author's Note:**

> From a list of kiss prompts over on my tumblr, [@oopsbirdficced](http://oopsbirdficced.tumblr.com). I open prompts semi-regularly, if you want to come check me out.
> 
> This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
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